I feel jumpjets have always been handled badly in the sim-style MW games. In the tabletop, they are jets that let you jump, i.e. a swift movement where you leap into the air and come down quickly. BT reflect this notion a lot more as well, with the launch being a strong burst of force.
But in the sim games, jumpjets are some kind of dumb weakass rocket engine and it's led to the perpetual issue of poptarting. If jumpjets really properly launched mechs, trying to land shots in the air with any kind of accuracy would be a very different story. Even just launching straight up would only give you a brief window to fire semi-reliably from and none of this tap-firing jumpjets to hover/slow the fall. Doing that shit should just pitch you right on your ass. Jumpjets should be tools for quick maneuvering and evasion, not sniping like slow-moving cloud of 70 tons of metal. Not to mention light mechs moving at 120 kph and really launching into the air thirty meters when they jump would be whole different level of difficulty to hit, as opposed to now where things lift off like they're getting hoisted by a steam-powered crank.
When people go for those jumpjets it should be like a 5G slam that rattles their teeth, not a weak little tenth of a G like navigating a roundabout in a two-cylinder sedan.
Here are maybe a little slow but the speed value of JJs isn’t actually that much faster than running speed. (If at all)
Now it’s true you get to shoot after jetting and don’t when running unless you turn a mechs guns off when they’re above 2/3rd max speed in a first person game it’s kinda unavoidable that jumping isn’t actually that fast.
And 5g acceleration posses other problems without fixing poptarting. In 1 second you would hit about 130kph and be 80 feet in the air (if straight up). Or back down to max speed if you were going up a hill and went forward. Fine control is necessary for it to work but without brain interfacing that kind of find control isn’t really possible. (Indeed one of the reasons gravity tends to be reduced in MW5/online is because proper gravity would make poptarting worse).
And there are loads of other things that are different in first person (like the fact that all your lasers hit the same spot, rather than each targeting an individual part)
Jump jets are still really good when used well even without poptarting. Changing your angle to above opens a lot of cockpits and the fact that you don’t have Bob when in the air is pretty huge. But yes I tend to not field them in favor of heavier armor/heat sinks.
I've gotten back into MW5 Mercs and I have a question. Is it better to always run a full lance? Normally I think in a fight between an Atlas and 2 Centurions I would put my money on the Atlas so it would seem to me potentially better at least up to a point to spend less tonnage on multiple engines and internals and concentrate it all as much as possible. But I'm not sure how the math actually works put in this game specifically.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
I've gotten back into MW5 Mercs and I have a question. Is it better to always run a full lance? Normally I think in a fight between an Atlas and 2 Centurions I would put my money on the Atlas so it would seem to me potentially better at least up to a point to spend less tonnage on multiple engines and internals and concentrate it all as much as possible. But I'm not sure how the math actually works put in this game specifically.
imo yes, mostly because a full lance gives the AI other things to shoot at and in MW5 you more often than not are facing a frankly comical number of enemies.
Even though a lot of them are hovercraft/tanks/VTOLs if you're the only thing they have to shoot at it can add up fast.
Also until you’re really strong you generally shoot tanks/vtol first. They have the highest DPS/health
+8
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
edited February 2023
I tended to run a full lance, except for those times when repairs, time, and money were tight and ran a trio instead. It's doable to run short, but depending on what you have and are up against that can get dodgy quick.
What is the point of AC/2s, anyway? I mean they're for long range direct fire, obviously, but they just seem completely outclassed by LRMs as far as I can tell. Being a ballistic you'd think the advantage would be being able to put more damage on specific parts, but the damage output is so low that that never seems to matter.
I guess in MW5, unlike in HBS, there is the possibility that you could just have great aim and pop cockpits with them?
What is the point of AC/2s, anyway? I mean they're for long range direct fire, obviously, but they just seem completely outclassed by LRMs as far as I can tell. Being a ballistic you'd think the advantage would be being able to put more damage on specific parts, but the damage output is so low that that never seems to matter.
I guess in MW5, unlike in HBS, there is the possibility that you could just have great aim and pop cockpits with them?
In TT they're really good for bringing down air assets, and can gain benefits of Targeting Computers.
EDIT: Also, AC/2 Field Guns are great for long range through-armor crit seeking. You just need to make sure that uh, you can keep them away from 'mechs that will happily ruin the field gunners' day.
Yeah LRMs have a sizable lock on time and can lose that lock after you fire them. With an AC2 you can just see a VTOL and immediately kill it. Or light hover vehicles also I imagine.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
What is the point of AC/2s, anyway? I mean they're for long range direct fire, obviously, but they just seem completely outclassed by LRMs as far as I can tell. Being a ballistic you'd think the advantage would be being able to put more damage on specific parts, but the damage output is so low that that never seems to matter.
I guess in MW5, unlike in HBS, there is the possibility that you could just have great aim and pop cockpits with them?
MWO, they can be good with cooldown quirks to pepper enemies and any range.
MW5, nothing. There are no ballistic range limits, and if you can't fit an AC5 you should just use energy or missiles.
HBS Battletech, nothing. The extra range over an AC5 doesn't make up for the damage loss, and you are never going to use the extra range anyways.
In PC BT the damage on ac2s is considerably buffed. They do the same damage as MLasers and have good range.
In MWO, ac2s in bulk are nasty; group fire for a huge range, fast reload, low heat pinpoint. Chain fire for extreme annoyance and counter sniping and maximum fun.
In MW5, they’re kinda bad, but swatting helicopters, turrets, and lightly armored vees on demand (fast reload) does absolutely have uses, and sometimes that’s all you’ve got.
In Mechwarrior 5 (with DLC, unmodded) is there a reliable place/area to get light rifles? They never drop in salvage. I've been playing with some fun builds that replace machine guns with light rifles, but every now and then I lose them in a fight and I've run through my stores.
Every time I copy a MWO build for a mech I forget that all those builds are suicidal and run like no back armour. Not sure how all these people play Lights, but apparently they never need to disengage and nope out.
Every time I copy a MWO build for a mech I forget that all those builds are suicidal and run like no back armour. Not sure how all these people play Lights, but apparently they never need to disengage and nope out.
Face tanking for the win!
Honestly I usually have to change the armor for the back for my play style as well. Then again, I did learn to never stay still in my tiny Lights. Either that or play my Urbies.
General thought process is that you should be taking more shots from the front than the back.
If you do need to disengage: dodge, twist, and head behind cover. Outside of maybe Alpine or a bad engage on Grim Plexus, there should always be some kind of cover around you can use to break locks. I’ve even used other enemy mechs for cover.
There’s always the chance you get the lucky Gauss shot to the back, but chances are that was going to kill you from the front too.
The problem is that hard cover is just plain too big to be useful as cover on many maps. On Solaris for example, some of those buildings feel like they are half a kilometer in length- if you're just brawling in the middle, or you're corner peaking and have your team to back you up so you can't be pushed, no problem, but if you're scouting, flanking or just plain retreating because your lance got blown up, now those buildings are walls of a gauntlet whose entire length you need to run before reaching hard cover. And in those cases I don't want to die to 1 of those 5-6 shots that will be fired after me before I reach it.
It's a fan made Battletech game called Battlemercs, based off the old computer games from the late 80's early 90's. It's still in beta, but the download link is in the guys discord: https://discord.com/invite/2AHdzpreeA
+10
SaldonasSee you space cowboy...Registered Userregular
Ah yes, I remember playing a copy of Battletech: Crescent Hawk's Inception on my brother's Amiga. I had no clue what I was doing back then but it sure was fun, if not hard.
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
The Crescent Hawks games are one of those things I keep telling myself I should play, but then get put off by the thought of actually trying to get it running.
The Crescent Hawks games are one of those things I keep telling myself I should play, but then get put off by the thought of actually trying to get it running.
I honestly never finished either of them. Got pretty far in Inception, but stopped for some reason. I never got past the intro for Revenge because I obsessed with trying to keep my mechs somewhat pristine after "landing".
The problem is that hard cover is just plain too big to be useful as cover on many maps. On Solaris for example, some of those buildings feel like they are half a kilometer in length- if you're just brawling in the middle, or you're corner peaking and have your team to back you up so you can't be pushed, no problem, but if you're scouting, flanking or just plain retreating because your lance got blown up, now those buildings are walls of a gauntlet whose entire length you need to run before reaching hard cover. And in those cases I don't want to die to 1 of those 5-6 shots that will be fired after me before I reach it.
Honestly, Solaris is one of those maps that just sucks. Really. I know the map guy is looking into it for other things and mentioned additional changes were possible.
Realistically though, the big thing to remember with playing lights is to always have an escape plan. From memory Solaris has escape routes that are NW/NE/SE/SW from center that lead into those long buildings, so I'd personally avoid engaging in those areas if possible. I'd rather go center to escape, at least there are shorter buildings there and it's more likely easy to get back to the team. The only reason I can think of to go outside the center diamond is a super long flank (already really risky) or if you're playing conquest.
Quad AC2 jaegermech in MWO is hilariously fun. It has all the psychological damage of RACs, but with none of the spinup or overheat problems.
So, I know this is from over a week ago (haven't been back on the forums in ages!), but I'll always take an opportunity to (re)introduce people to my silly, pants on head King Crab build.
Quad AC2 jaegermech in MWO is hilariously fun. It has all the psychological damage of RACs, but with none of the spinup or overheat problems.
So, I know this is from over a week ago (haven't been back on the forums in ages!), but I'll always take an opportunity to (re)introduce people to my silly, pants on head King Crab build.
Thunderbolt should get something, imo, but yeah I feel like that's very good for Battlemasters
e: wait I misread I think. How many missile points does a Battlemaster have? Because otherwise ... MRMs? I guess? I feel like an LRM Battlemaster is not good
Can someone explain what the platinum collection nonsense is? The way the events are phrased (and patch notes relating to them) are very "we expect you to already know what we're talking about". I assume it's just more paid-only stuff?
Basically, up until the new patch you’d buy a pack of 4 mech variants that PGI chose. These 4 variants get the (P) suffix and the cbill boost. You also get their skin for all variants of that chassis (ex: you get the platinum HBK-IIC-B, now you can apply the platinum skin to your HBK-IIC-A as well).
Basically, up until the new patch you’d buy a pack of 4 mech variants that PGI chose. These 4 variants get the (P) suffix and the cbill boost. You also get their skin for all variants of that chassis (ex: you get the platinum HBK-IIC-B, now you can apply the platinum skin to your HBK-IIC-A as well).
Has been incredibly popular from what I’ve seen.
Reminds me of the whole gold Clan mech business from back in the day…and even those sold out fairly quickly.
| Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
I picked up MW5M and all the expansions save for the new one when MW5M was on sale on Steam a couple weeks back. Been enjoying it up until I hit the highest level zones. I feel like I've hit a brick wall in the level 12+ zones. At that point you hit the 400 ton max allowance. Finding the highest tonnage assaults in the market is a total crapshoot - even when going going to industrial zones next to the high level conflict zones. If assault mechs show up on salvage they're far too expensive for the salvage allowance I can get even with negotiating all in on salvage. I've managed two Atlas Ds so far, one Banshee 3S (the only one worth a damn), one Highlander but it's the melee variant (with a katana? I guess it's a reference to THAT Highlander, but I replaced it with a claymore like a True Scotsman), and managed to snag a Mauler last night. So still under tonnage at 100+100+95+90 = 385t, but not too bad.
I'm getting plastered every single drop. I'll take the Highlander or Mauler cause I don't trust an AI with either. Even then, with the Highlander my melee weapon seems to get destroyed at the drop of a hat. The Mauler has massive heat issues and too little armor for my tastes - haven't had it long enough to fiddle with it's loadout. In the field, at least one of the AI Atlases will get cored or at least have most of it's weapons destroyed because the AI has chosen it to pound on. Damn enemy AI is good at focus fire - respect where it's due. I definitely had to adjust my tactics to using LRMs like, at ALL to attempt to keep the repair bills as low as possible. I say attempt because even if I do manage to keep damage down, hell's bells are assaults not only expensive as hell to repair (which I get) but take forever to to be repaired - even when not in a conflict zone.
It's that time factor that kinda pisses me off. IMHO, it doesn't scale well with metronomic 90 day upkeep payments. I'm doing what I can to schedule repairs and then jump to maximize up time for contracts, but I pretty quickly started to run out of cash in the level 12+ zones because it takes 1-2M c-bills and 2mo to repair. I'm lucky if I get two contracts done in a 90 day pay period. The payouts typically cover the cost of repairs or upkeep, but rarely both. This in part due to my rep with Kurita (where the high level content is) - still in the negative 100s from all of my early game work for Davion - but again IMHO I feel like the game is working against me. I gotta go to lvl 13 conflict zones to get access to the big boys, but the mission payout isn't commiserate with the level of effort required to stay afloat.
In the process of getting the second Atlas and the Mauler I saw my cash reserves dwindle from 50m c-bills to 6m because the rewards aren't keeping pace with the costs in the areas were I found those mechs. Furthermore, the missions start throwing completely bonkers levels of enemies at me. I had an assassination mission where the targets had 2 King Crabs - nasty, but manageable - but then 3-4 gunships showed up along with at least 1 assault lance via dropship and brother, there's no way to get out of that with out a hefty repair bill. I managed to headshot both KGCs, and both were available in salvage... for 43 points when my budget was less than 30. Pardon my french, but fuck off, game. My repair bill was also 4-5m and the whole mission left a bad enough taste in my mouth I pretended it never happened an loaded a save from before the mission.
So I've headed back to the level 8-10 conflict zones which are the sweet spots for:
Using heavies with the occasional assault, which for me have some fun weapon loadouts and decent armor
Repairs that are affordable and have manageable time frames
Reasonable OpFor levels
In these areas I can make bank again and build up enough of reserve to go assault mech spelunking in the higher level markets so I can dive into the endgame missions. The main campaign mission I'm up to is level 12 or 13 and there's no way I'll complete it to my satisfaction without a full 400 drop weight. I have another mission at that level that's a final quest-line mission involving
recovering a nuke
that I've tried to do 3 times already and will not attempt again until I have 4 100t beasts. That mission, while amazing because you feel like you're really in warzone, is completely insane. The game throws multiple drops of fresh OpFor lances literally on top of you after you've fought off at least a dozen aircraft, a dozen vehicles, and a dozen mechs. Your mechs are in the shape you'd expect after fighting all of that. I was down at least one AI mech in all 3 attempts and I was out of ammo or lost half of my weapons with no armor left to speak of. Fighting 4 fresh mechs - even at half my tonnage - just ain't in the cards.
I'm not using any mods since this is my first playthrough and it's the campaign, so I'm trying to experience the game as the devs intended. I'll be trying out mods for any subsequent careers and depending on how those mods work in practice, I may never go to conflict zones above level 11 ever again because to me it seems the higher levels are for suckers and fools with too much money to burn.
So that's my experience (quasi-review?) with the game so far. I love it up until the endgame high levels where the maths don't jive with me.
Final thought: I really wish the starmap would provide info on the levels of industrial zones so I waste less time going to one expecting it to have mechs in the market at tonnages useful to the adjacent level 10 conflict zone instead of the also adjacent 8 conflict zone. I mean, bravo for simulating the vastness of space and the realities of distance and speed of communication, but dang I hate wasting my time traveling for 2-3 weeks to a place only to find out the damn rare or hero mech is a Centurion with an AC20 when I'm routinely fielding 65-75 tonners. That dog ain't gonna hunt, son.
To end on a positive note: the hero Rifleman with dual gausses is the only Rifleman I will ever use. I have always thought the Rifleman sucked, since 198-frikkin-5 when I bought the boardgame for the first time. (I am older than dirt, yelling at clouds.)
|_
Oo\ Ironsizide
+3
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Was the mission chain
Stop the Launch
Four missions, with mission four being:
Mission 4: 400 Tonnage Limit, Difficulty 90 Warzone-like Mission on Summer, joining the Fifth Lyran Guards to capture the warhead and kill Lionel Stanz and his supporters.
Because yeah. IIRC, You really, really have to manage the wider picture in that mission: Let friendlies engage with the OpFor wherever possible, take out the artillery ASAP, kill off soft targets as fast and efficiently as possible.
Great mission chain, but it absolutely does not hold back. You have to go in with a crack squad and gear.
One thing I did was bring a Star League Phoenix Hawk kitted for mobility, and made a beeline for artillery implacements while I left my squadmates to hold a location at or just behind where the friendly forces were engaged. If you move fast enough and use the terrain, you don't attract a ton of aggro and can have the arty batteries flattened in the first couple minutes of the engagement.
Basically, up until the new patch you’d buy a pack of 4 mech variants that PGI chose. These 4 variants get the (P) suffix and the cbill boost. You also get their skin for all variants of that chassis (ex: you get the platinum HBK-IIC-B, now you can apply the platinum skin to your HBK-IIC-A as well).
Has been incredibly popular from what I’ve seen.
Reminds me of the whole gold Clan mech business from back in the day…and even those sold out fairly quickly.
It’s very definitely supposed to be a nod to gold mechs, but much cheaper and more accessible.
Posts
Here are maybe a little slow but the speed value of JJs isn’t actually that much faster than running speed. (If at all)
Now it’s true you get to shoot after jetting and don’t when running unless you turn a mechs guns off when they’re above 2/3rd max speed in a first person game it’s kinda unavoidable that jumping isn’t actually that fast.
And 5g acceleration posses other problems without fixing poptarting. In 1 second you would hit about 130kph and be 80 feet in the air (if straight up). Or back down to max speed if you were going up a hill and went forward. Fine control is necessary for it to work but without brain interfacing that kind of find control isn’t really possible. (Indeed one of the reasons gravity tends to be reduced in MW5/online is because proper gravity would make poptarting worse).
And there are loads of other things that are different in first person (like the fact that all your lasers hit the same spot, rather than each targeting an individual part)
Jump jets are still really good when used well even without poptarting. Changing your angle to above opens a lot of cockpits and the fact that you don’t have Bob when in the air is pretty huge. But yes I tend to not field them in favor of heavier armor/heat sinks.
imo yes, mostly because a full lance gives the AI other things to shoot at and in MW5 you more often than not are facing a frankly comical number of enemies.
Even though a lot of them are hovercraft/tanks/VTOLs if you're the only thing they have to shoot at it can add up fast.
I guess in MW5, unlike in HBS, there is the possibility that you could just have great aim and pop cockpits with them?
Edit: to clarify, it’s not just headshots, it’s coring out ANY component without just sandblasting armor off the whole mech
In TT they're really good for bringing down air assets, and can gain benefits of Targeting Computers.
EDIT: Also, AC/2 Field Guns are great for long range through-armor crit seeking. You just need to make sure that uh, you can keep them away from 'mechs that will happily ruin the field gunners' day.
MWO, they can be good with cooldown quirks to pepper enemies and any range.
MW5, nothing. There are no ballistic range limits, and if you can't fit an AC5 you should just use energy or missiles.
HBS Battletech, nothing. The extra range over an AC5 doesn't make up for the damage loss, and you are never going to use the extra range anyways.
In MWO, ac2s in bulk are nasty; group fire for a huge range, fast reload, low heat pinpoint. Chain fire for extreme annoyance and counter sniping and maximum fun.
In MW5, they’re kinda bad, but swatting helicopters, turrets, and lightly armored vees on demand (fast reload) does absolutely have uses, and sometimes that’s all you’ve got.
https://youtu.be/oNMveg0lmVo
Though since it's you aiming and not using a roll system I'm not sure what it'd look like.
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
Face tanking for the win!
Honestly I usually have to change the armor for the back for my play style as well. Then again, I did learn to never stay still in my tiny Lights. Either that or play my Urbies.
Steam: betsuni7
If you do need to disengage: dodge, twist, and head behind cover. Outside of maybe Alpine or a bad engage on Grim Plexus, there should always be some kind of cover around you can use to break locks. I’ve even used other enemy mechs for cover.
There’s always the chance you get the lucky Gauss shot to the back, but chances are that was going to kill you from the front too.
https://youtu.be/0DQJMvYWvnw
It's a fan made Battletech game called Battlemercs, based off the old computer games from the late 80's early 90's. It's still in beta, but the download link is in the guys discord: https://discord.com/invite/2AHdzpreeA
Switch: SW-1493-0062-4053
I honestly never finished either of them. Got pretty far in Inception, but stopped for some reason. I never got past the intro for Revenge because I obsessed with trying to keep my mechs somewhat pristine after "landing".
Steam: betsuni7
Honestly, Solaris is one of those maps that just sucks. Really. I know the map guy is looking into it for other things and mentioned additional changes were possible.
Realistically though, the big thing to remember with playing lights is to always have an escape plan. From memory Solaris has escape routes that are NW/NE/SE/SW from center that lead into those long buildings, so I'd personally avoid engaging in those areas if possible. I'd rather go center to escape, at least there are shorter buildings there and it's more likely easy to get back to the team. The only reason I can think of to go outside the center diamond is a super long flank (already really risky) or if you're playing conquest.
So, I know this is from over a week ago (haven't been back on the forums in ages!), but I'll always take an opportunity to (re)introduce people to my silly, pants on head King Crab build.
2xAC2 (309 rounds)
2xLB2X (309 rounds)
2xRAC2 (1230 rounds)
All other space delegated to DHS, ammo, and a standard engine.
Is it silly? Yes. Is it effective? Surprisingly, also yes.
(Here's an old video of mine where I took it out for a spin...ran into a regular MWO Twitch streamer that morning too)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enKdIZTlaxE
I will confirm this thing is deadly. Butter is optional.
Steam: betsuni7
*New Platinum mechs.
*They were apparently able to get the missile door trick working on several mechs, based on missile tubes:
*Quirk adjustments:
Jenner IIC (JR7-FY)
Cicada (CDA-3C, CDA-3F)
Vulcan (VL-2T)
Viper (All)
Hatchetman (HCT-3F, HCT-3D)
Nova (All)
Dragon (DRG-5N)
Victor (VTR-9K)
Kodiak (KDK-1)
e: wait I misread I think. How many missile points does a Battlemaster have? Because otherwise ... MRMs? I guess? I feel like an LRM Battlemaster is not good
Realistically you're right and it's MRMs.
Basically, up until the new patch you’d buy a pack of 4 mech variants that PGI chose. These 4 variants get the (P) suffix and the cbill boost. You also get their skin for all variants of that chassis (ex: you get the platinum HBK-IIC-B, now you can apply the platinum skin to your HBK-IIC-A as well).
Has been incredibly popular from what I’ve seen.
Reminds me of the whole gold Clan mech business from back in the day…and even those sold out fairly quickly.
I'm getting plastered every single drop. I'll take the Highlander or Mauler cause I don't trust an AI with either. Even then, with the Highlander my melee weapon seems to get destroyed at the drop of a hat. The Mauler has massive heat issues and too little armor for my tastes - haven't had it long enough to fiddle with it's loadout. In the field, at least one of the AI Atlases will get cored or at least have most of it's weapons destroyed because the AI has chosen it to pound on. Damn enemy AI is good at focus fire - respect where it's due. I definitely had to adjust my tactics to using LRMs like, at ALL to attempt to keep the repair bills as low as possible. I say attempt because even if I do manage to keep damage down, hell's bells are assaults not only expensive as hell to repair (which I get) but take forever to to be repaired - even when not in a conflict zone.
It's that time factor that kinda pisses me off. IMHO, it doesn't scale well with metronomic 90 day upkeep payments. I'm doing what I can to schedule repairs and then jump to maximize up time for contracts, but I pretty quickly started to run out of cash in the level 12+ zones because it takes 1-2M c-bills and 2mo to repair. I'm lucky if I get two contracts done in a 90 day pay period. The payouts typically cover the cost of repairs or upkeep, but rarely both. This in part due to my rep with Kurita (where the high level content is) - still in the negative 100s from all of my early game work for Davion - but again IMHO I feel like the game is working against me. I gotta go to lvl 13 conflict zones to get access to the big boys, but the mission payout isn't commiserate with the level of effort required to stay afloat.
In the process of getting the second Atlas and the Mauler I saw my cash reserves dwindle from 50m c-bills to 6m because the rewards aren't keeping pace with the costs in the areas were I found those mechs. Furthermore, the missions start throwing completely bonkers levels of enemies at me. I had an assassination mission where the targets had 2 King Crabs - nasty, but manageable - but then 3-4 gunships showed up along with at least 1 assault lance via dropship and brother, there's no way to get out of that with out a hefty repair bill. I managed to headshot both KGCs, and both were available in salvage... for 43 points when my budget was less than 30. Pardon my french, but fuck off, game. My repair bill was also 4-5m and the whole mission left a bad enough taste in my mouth I pretended it never happened an loaded a save from before the mission.
So I've headed back to the level 8-10 conflict zones which are the sweet spots for:
In these areas I can make bank again and build up enough of reserve to go assault mech spelunking in the higher level markets so I can dive into the endgame missions. The main campaign mission I'm up to is level 12 or 13 and there's no way I'll complete it to my satisfaction without a full 400 drop weight. I have another mission at that level that's a final quest-line mission involving
I'm not using any mods since this is my first playthrough and it's the campaign, so I'm trying to experience the game as the devs intended. I'll be trying out mods for any subsequent careers and depending on how those mods work in practice, I may never go to conflict zones above level 11 ever again because to me it seems the higher levels are for suckers and fools with too much money to burn.
So that's my experience (quasi-review?) with the game so far. I love it up until the endgame high levels where the maths don't jive with me.
Final thought: I really wish the starmap would provide info on the levels of industrial zones so I waste less time going to one expecting it to have mechs in the market at tonnages useful to the adjacent level 10 conflict zone instead of the also adjacent 8 conflict zone. I mean, bravo for simulating the vastness of space and the realities of distance and speed of communication, but dang I hate wasting my time traveling for 2-3 weeks to a place only to find out the damn rare or hero mech is a Centurion with an AC20 when I'm routinely fielding 65-75 tonners. That dog ain't gonna hunt, son.
To end on a positive note: the hero Rifleman with dual gausses is the only Rifleman I will ever use. I have always thought the Rifleman sucked, since 198-frikkin-5 when I bought the boardgame for the first time. (I am older than dirt, yelling at clouds.)
Oo\ Ironsizide
Four missions, with mission four being:
Mission 4: 400 Tonnage Limit, Difficulty 90 Warzone-like Mission on Summer, joining the Fifth Lyran Guards to capture the warhead and kill Lionel Stanz and his supporters.
Because yeah. IIRC, You really, really have to manage the wider picture in that mission: Let friendlies engage with the OpFor wherever possible, take out the artillery ASAP, kill off soft targets as fast and efficiently as possible.
Great mission chain, but it absolutely does not hold back. You have to go in with a crack squad and gear.
It’s very definitely supposed to be a nod to gold mechs, but much cheaper and more accessible.